Financial Stress & Your Health

In recent years, it has become
increasingly clear that one's financial well-being and physical well-being are
intimately linked. Financial difficulties can increase your stress level,
decrease your access to services, and change your lifestyle in ways that make
you and your family more likely to get sick. This is why it is so important for
you to address your financial problems.

•For a variety of reasons,
the amount of money your household earns correlates with actual physical
changes in your body. Those with lower incomes show higher levels of certain
biochemical markers of disease, including:

◦Higher average blood sugar levels and risk for diabetes

◦Higher blood pressure and
cholesterol, which both increase the risk of heart attack and stroke.

◦Higher levels of C-reactive
protein, a marker of chronic inflammation related to heart disease and some cancers.

• A family’s financial struggles also can have a great and
lasting effect on children.

◦Children of families with
lower incomes are, on average, less healthy than their wealthier peers. They
have a greater onset of new medical conditions and get sicker from chronic
conditions, such as asthma, diabetes, and epilepsy. These differences become
more pronounced as the children get older.

◦Low income children miss more days of school due to illness and have more hospital visits compared to higher income peers.

◦Newborns in lower income
families have lower birth weights than those of higher incomes.

•Chronic stress, which can
be caused by financial difficulties, is also associated with various illnesses
and disease states: